by Swim Florida

Videos for Instructional Purposes

This page will contain different videos for all the strokes and important points. These videos serve the purpose of demonstrating the mechanics that seems to be the most efficient and fastest mechanics at this point. In most of the videos, it will look like people swim quite differently but it is what the swimmers have in common that we will look at.

For each video, we will try to post notes and comments and try to point out the swimmer or swimmers that we think best demonstrate the main points for that stroke. It will also be a noticeable difference in the appearance of each stroke depending on the distance, but it is the main points that we will try to identify or point out.

For all the videos watch the catch/beginning of the stroke, rotation (shoulders and hips at the same time), recovery (high elbows), hand entry (where - in front of the shoulder and not too far forward), kick.

2012 Olympics 100m Backstroke
Watch when they are done with their stroke and rotation, it is almost so that the rotation starts before the hand comes up out of the water. That is not what is happening, they finish the stroke and starts the rotation and recovery at the same time. Also look at the underwater kicking (they kick in both directions, kicking both up and down). Look at the hand entry and how early/quickly they start the next stroke and how they do the pull. There are just a few seconds of each segment so there might be good to watch the video several times. The swimming starts around 3:30 min mark.

Backstroke by Ryan Lochte, to bring the hand by the hip up as late as Ryan does you have to rotate a lot, as well as being strong and flexible. This might not work for everybody, but still look to see how long his pull is and when the rotation takes place.

Men's 50 m Breaststroke - Final (what happens to the swimmer in lane 6 at the end of the race, he is the one keeping his head up and looks forward the whole time - do not do this, try to be more like lane 3, 4, 5).

This video is from USA Swimming in 2009, when I was at the Select Camp in 2013 according to their observations and research,
1) do not lean too far back, more or less equal weight on both feet
2) do not look too much forward before or during the start.